Monday, 13 July 2015

In the "Big Freeze" of February 2012, we had overnight temperatures of less than minus 18 degrees Centigrade for around a week...
one morning we awoke to -21°C....
in fact, during that week the temperature never rose above -6°C.

There were none to be seen in 2013 either...
nor in 2014! We'd effectively lost a species from the meadow.
Our meadow is an island in a sea of agriculture...
there are no natural corridors for things like the larger spiders....
except where the trees happen to touch.
The little spiders parachute in on silk.

At the lake end, the ground is kept mown, either by machine or sheep...
I felt that we'd never have this rather magnificent spider back.
Then Susan, of "Days on the Claise"....when I went to mow her verger with Betsy....
happened to mention that there were plenty in the long vegetation...
so I "spidernapped" four large females....
and released them in one small area of our meadow.

Sunday evening I was having a walk around and....
as I had done on previous occasions....
paid special attention to where I had released the kidnapped madames...
and, hey....
there were six webs visible from the path...
including one occupied by a male.

A male Wasp Spider...
much smaller and less highly marked than the dame!

A female wasp Spider....
highly marked...
yet difficult to find!

They're back... they're back... the Argie-Bargies are back!
Hopefully Susan will allow me to do a further spidernap later this year.

Spotted on the Web

We collect links to interesting Natural History & Environmental stories that we spot on the Interweb...this is where we draw your attention to them...[and there is an archive page of the same name... where you can also leave comments]

"In the past few years there has been a "wild food" boom with celebrity chefs heading for the great outdoors in search of fresh ingredients. So, how practical is it to live solely on wild food? And does spurning the supermarket, as some critics have claimed, make you just a bit annoying?"

Wildlife in the Aigronne and Touraine du Sud

Based at our house near Le Grand Pressigny, we are centrally placed between The Brenne & The Loire Anjou Touraine National Parks and the Sologne, enabling us to observe wild events and discover new [to us] insects, plants and birds.

We started this record in 2003, when we bought La Forge and from time to time we will be publishing the odd species list of what we've seen here at La Forge and in the immediate vicinity.

We've also been building a collection of finds, mainly from prehistory... we record those as well on the blog Touraine Flint.As well as pictures on this site, we've been posting to flickr.

Guided Tours in a lovely limo!

Susan&Simon from Days on the Claise have another blog, Loire Valley Nature, which is "designed to be used as an English language natural history web resource for lowland central France." .

Please note:

The early listings were only a few observations with an entry and usually no record of numbers!They had been taken directly from our 'birders notebook'Where there are further details from the book we keep at the house, they will be added later.